Image source: www.mizjain.org
For photo-sharing, online-classifieds and other community-driven websites determined to monetise their photo inventory, Pixenate™ offers influential photo-editing tools that foster creativity and stimulate purchases of custom photo products. Pixenate is a self-hosted solution which means it is software you can install on your own webserver. Pixenate is fully customizable so you can change any aspect of Pixenate’s appearance to suit your own website’s unique identity. Pixenate comes with a powerful fully-documented API so you can also change it’s behaviour if you so wish. Pixenate’s appearance can be changed by adapting any one of the many Themes (or skins) which are provided. Pixenate requires no browser plugins or additional downloads for your users so they can quickly get creative with their photos.
Pixenate makes photo-centric websites more helpful by embedding simple photo-editing directly in your website. Pixenate increases repeat visits to your website and makes photo-centric websites stickier. Your users may already use your website for uploading, storing, sharing or printing photos. Adding Pixenate to your website allows your users to edit those photos too. Whether it’s social networking, photo merchandising or online classifieds, people want to show their photos in the best possible light. Pixenate helps non-experts get the most out of their photos by providing powerful but simple-to-use photo-editing tools.
Pixenate is mainly well suited for photo-merchandising websites and offers powerful tools for cropping and overlaying photos on to product templates such as cards, calendars and mugs.
Part 2 of Photo Ethics
There are still ethics involved in taking pictures especially those of unknown subjects in of different cultures while traveling n another country. You can’t just go shooting at random people with your camera! In this series of posts, I shall attempt in giving a few tips on how to be polite when taking photos.
If you are merely traveling and taking pictures on leisure and not on assignment (hey, you’ll never know!), payment or tipping shouldn’t be an issue. Some photographers do this. If it works for you (like if you have a budget for it), then why not? But if paying people makes you a little uncomfortable, then don’t forget to include sweets and other souvenirs in your travel bag. Children love them! I have to warn you though, give these gifts only after the fact and not as a means to get someone to agree with having his or her picture taken. Do not bribe. Remember - ethics!
If we want to enhance an image by editing there are countless ways on how to do it. This is what we call as Post-Processing. What’s next are some basic , frequently used steps to manipulate and process digital images. Just a reminder, work on a replica of an original image so if in any case you mess up, just make another copy of the original and do the editing again.
If you wish to display a photo on a website, you need to enhance it a little further. It’s good not to over do the editing, since the photo may look unnatural and it can lose some detail. You always have the “undo” command if you don’t like the change you made.
Okay. This is no joke. But this happened once before.
I and a group of elderly tourists, each of us armed with our respective weapon of choice, came upon a young child in a street corner, minding a small stall where she and her mother were selling lovely beaded jewelry. Good thing that I had hung back on the edges as I had a different subject of which I wanted to take pictures. It turned out that child was quite shy and had an issue with cameras, so when this large group of people with cameras started to crowd on her, the poor frightened kid started bawling! With the language barrier and the mother coming into the scene not sooner (enough) than five minutes later, imagine how we had tried to appease the child.
But the lesson of this story is that, if possible, avoid traveling in a large group when taking pictures. If you can do it alone, it’s the best way to get good street photos.
Here are more tips on photo-taking ethics. As I’ve said in previous posts, you just can’t go shooting at random people with your camera! I shall attempt in giving a few tips on how to be polite when taking photographs especially of people when you’re in one of your globe trotting adventures!
Smile! This is a great way to build a good rapport with your subject. No language needed as smiling is universal enough on its own. Also try to maintain strong eye contact before, during, and after taking your photos. It helps making your subject or subjects at ease, and it also helps with getting permission while showing your appreciation for allowing you to take pictures. Remember that you are somehow invading their space and count yourself lucky that they trust you enough to do so.
Here are more tips on photo-taking ethics. As I’ve said in previous posts, you just can’t go shooting at random people with your camera! I shall attempt in giving a few tips on how to be polite when taking photographs especially of people when you’re in one of your globe trotting adventures!
Now, read carefully. Before photographing children, it is best if you ask permission from an adult. Better if the child’s parent is present. Probably too bothersome but this is a very delicate situation, and you need to treat it as such. There are varying child pornography laws in different countries and you can never be too careful lest you be accused of taking perverse pictures of children. Foreigners are considered suspicious entities, remember that. I have a photographer friend who carries release forms wherever he goes to avoid hassle – that’s how careful he is.
Vector is a term used in a graphic design. Its original context is SVG which stands for Scalable Vector Graphics. Scalable means even if you try to resize it, be it smaller or larger, the quality of the image or the pixels, will not be affected or deteriorated. It will still be the same, compared to Bitmap, that when you resize it, the quality is subjected to change resulting to blurry image. Vector is applicable to Logo designs and the like because if in case you needed to resize them for future use, you are completely able to do so. The quality will remain intact. The drawback in using vector is that it is not as fine as bitmap images or photographs do. Because vectors contain selectable regions only, meaning it is limited. In vector, the other detail such as fineness or color is not enriched or vivid compared to bitmap. Though you can manually achieve it, it will require you to go on pixel by pixel editing.
There are still ethics involved in taking pictures especially those of unknown subjects in of different cultures while traveling n another country. You can�t just go shooting at random people with your camera! In this series of posts, I shall attempt in giving a few tips on how to be polite when taking photos.
When in Rome� it�s a clich�, an old saying but nevertheless true. It doesn�t mean that because you�re a guest in a strange country, you are already excused from social faux pas. Personally, I find it essential to do a little research on the culture of the people of the country I�m visiting. Sometimes, I even learn a few (guidebook) phrases in their language. A little understanding endears me to people and it also keeps me from getting into very uncomfortable situations. And don�t you think that if you know your subject better culturally, then you tend to have a better perception of it aesthetically? Haha, maybe it�s just me talking but this one never fails me.
Let’s take a break from editing and focus on picture taking. Whether you are an amateur or professional photographer, there are still ethics involved in taking pictures especially those of unknown subjects in of different cultures while traveling n another country. You can’t just go shooting at random people with your camera! In this series of posts, I shall attempt in giving a few tips on how to be polite when taking photos.
Always ask permission. If a person or a small group of people are the main subjects of your photo, it is best to politely ask for permission. It depends though on the situation. Sometimes a mere smile and a simple gesture to your camera is enough but there are times that you really have to be verbal about it. Most people are actually accommodating but if someone says no, then just thank them despite of it and move on. Try to be sensitive about the vibes people give off as sometimes there are those who say yes but do it out of politeness. If you’re taking a picture of that encompasses a very large group like a parade, you don’t have to ask permission. This time, you can get away with clicking on!
There is one easy way to turn a photo in color into a classic black-and-white. Although I must warn you that there is limited control for the final image by doing the process that I will describe here.
Open your image editor. Click on Image on the menu bar. Then click on Mode. Then click on Grayscale. Lastly, click OK. And that�s it. Like I said, control is limited with regards to the black and white features of the photo. Though what you can do is to adjust the brightness of the photo.